My friend Donna asked me to post a photograph of the maple-pecan pie I made yesterday, but honestly: pecan pie, delicious as it is, always looks like dog food in a pie shell. You don't really want to see that on a Sunday morning, do you?

I am still reading that dreadful Sexton novel, and I really don't know why. It has turned into a paean for Alcoholics Anonymous; and whatever one might think of the organization and its efficacy, there's no question that drunk-to-sober makes a tedious plotline . . . especially when decorated with details such as "She tried on the opera-length pearls that [her father] had given her. Standing before the mirror, she spoke of their translucence, and carefully matched size," or "Lobster without champagne was like littlenecks without martinis," or "She did not have the sort of small remote control brain requisite for [proofreading]."It seems that I am supposed to sympathize with this girl, but drunk or sober, she is an idiot. I have no idea how she managed to get into Harvard.